The present invention relates to a deployable floor panel arrangement for an aircraft cabin area.
When operating an aircraft, it may be desirable to flexibly change a cargo-to-passenger ratio of an aircraft cabin area depending on current demands. In other words, it may be desired to flexibly change the configuration of at least a part of an aircraft cabin area to allow for a transport of either passengers or cargo items, thus flexibly adapting the respective transport capacities of the aircraft.
For transporting passengers, an aircraft cabin area needs to be equipped with seat arrangements. However, in case it is desired to use the aircraft cabin area partially or completely for transporting cargo items, these seat arrangements occupy valuable space. Furthermore, the seat arrangements represent obstacles which limit possible dimensions of cargo items to be transported. Therefore, for allowing for a change from passenger to cargo transport, so far the complete seat arrangements have to be removed from a respective aircraft cabin area. This involves either a manual detachment of single seat arrangements from fastening rails and transporting them out of the aircraft or a complete removal of large palettes to which a plurality of seat arrangements are attached. As major disadvantages, these solutions are very time consuming and require seat arrangements to be present and/or storable at airports for reconfiguring the aircraft cabin area. Also, during loading and unloading of the seat arrangements these are exposed to all weather conditions.
DE 10 2011 017 164 A1 and US 2012/0261981 A1 disclose an equipment module for a vehicle which comprises a floor element, at least one first inductive coupling element and at least one electronics unit. The floor element comprises an attachment means for attaching items of equipment and a retaining means for attaching the floor element at a positioning space in the vehicle. The first inductive coupling element is arranged on the floor element and is connected to at least one electronics unit. The electronics unit is adapted for providing an identification signal by way of the first inductive coupling element, which identification signal makes it possible to identify the equipment module.